


waking up just to catch yourself dreaming again

by hegelsholiday



Series: the geometry of hearts [2]
Category: Dreamcatcher (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Childhood Friends, F/F, korean american!dreamcatcher, senior year feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23382385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hegelsholiday/pseuds/hegelsholiday
Summary: Something about Bora has always sucked the breath out of Siyeon. Even back in elementary school, when it was Siyeon ducking her head to avoid a stray kick as Bora swung her legs a little too hard traversing the monkey bars. There’s something about Bora that Siyeon just can’t seem to look away from--staring at the sun and knowing it’ll hurt, knowing it’s too far away, but doing it anyway. Just for fun. For how beautiful it looks when it’s rising over the horizon, ten minutes out from zero hour.
Relationships: Kim Bora | SuA/Lee Siyeon
Series: the geometry of hearts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1681783
Comments: 20
Kudos: 84





	waking up just to catch yourself dreaming again

Getting up on school-days weeks out from spring break is an agonizing exercise in how long Siyeon can wake up to the same Green Day song as her alarm before she starts to develop an ingrained violent response to the opening guitar riff. 

She cracks the light switch on slowly, squinting at the sudden burst of brightness, tiptoes her way around the house to slide essays and homework into her backpack. 

Siyeon is a creature of habit, more than anything, which is how she can stumble, barely awake to the car, a half-eaten piece of bagel dangling precariously in her mouth. Somehow, after four years of getting up before the sun, Siyeon has never fully gotten used to it. But there’s something soothing about navigating the deserted crossroads outside of her house, passing the old drug store a few blocks out from her house where only half the letters light up. 

The first scarlet threads of sunlight have cracked open over the clouds when she pulls up to the student parking lot. She looks over the empty number-assigned spaces and feels a sudden sort of ridiculous pride, like surveying her domain and finding no part of it lacking. 

“Hey!” it’s Bora’s voice, as loud and clear it is at six in the morning, and Siyeon turns, already finding herself instinctively quirking up the corner of her mouth. 

“I thought you didn’t believe in waking up early for school,” she says. She takes in Bora’s slightly rumpled track and field uniform and her messy ponytail, the same lopsided grin that Siyeon mirrors. 

“Yeah, not for AP Lit,” Bora says, wrinkling her nose. “One day Richards will appreciate the amount of sleep I lose churning out bullshit about figurative language.” 

Siyeon laughs softly at that, slinging her backpack over her shoulder as she locks the car. “It’s nap period if you sit in the back. Anyway, I’m heading there now, so wish me luck.” 

“Good luck,” Bora says. It’s still dark out, but she reaches out and grabs Siyeon’s hand. “Let’s hang out after school yeah? I barely see you anymore.” 

Even though she knows Bora doesn’t mean for it to make her feel bad, it twinges in her stomach a little. She hangs back, thinking about her excuses. They’re good excuses. The upcoming debate competition. Schoolwork. “Don’t you have practice?” she says instead. 

“Yeah, but Coach is late.” Bora rests her head on Siyeon’s shoulder, nose brushing across her hair. “The bell doesn’t ring for another five minutes, and the sun is about to rise.” 

Siyeon snorts, but doesn’t move, until she suddenly thinks about what Richards had said yesterday about class. “Shit,” she says, “we have a timed write today that I completely forgot about.” She briefly weighs the benefits of rushing to school so she can quickly go over the poem they’d been analyzing, but Bora is right and the sun _is_ rising, in the sure and comforting way it always does, pale pastel pinks and cracks of gold. 

The sun rises, and in these moments where it’s just the two of them, Siyeon likes to think the sun rises for Bora and Bora alone. 

\---

“My mom probably won’t let you come over on a Monday night,” Bora says. She sidesteps the throng of students rushing out the main entrance doors, scowling as she ducks to avoid somebody’s backpack. “But I mean. you’ve climbed the tree outside my window before and--” 

Siyeon cuts her off, checking her phone. She still has to meet up with her public forum students to go over tournament procedures, and as captain this year it’ll look bad if she’s always late. “Hang on, your mom still thinks I’m a good kid.”

“I _know_ ,” Bora says. “She’s always talking about it after you leave. She wants to know how your college applications are going every other day.” 

Siyeon groans. “Don’t remind me, will you? It’s like you have to regularly remind them that decisions don’t come out for another month at least.”

“Moms,” Bora shrugs. “No need to be prematurely hung about decisions that haven’t come out yet. So, the window, yeah?”

Siyeon hesitates. “I’m not risking my laptop,” she says. “And your house is too far to walk.” 

“Just park at Yoohyeon’s. Tell her parents you guys need to work on debate together. Don’t you guys have the Harvard tournament soon?” 

“Yeah,” she frowns. “I should probably work on fixing our cases. I already feel bad about dumping a lot of the research load last semester on her to work on college apps.” 

“Ah forget about it then,” Bora says. “You guys work on Harvard, otherwise Yoohyeon will stop letting me borrow her food because I keep distracting you.” 

The hallways are largely empty now. Overhead, the bell rings for seventh hour students. “You can’t say it’s borrowing when you just eat it,” she says. “Have a better sense of decency than that regarding food.” 

“Alright Miss Lee,” Bora says, imitating the physics teacher’s high-strung voice. “Whatever you say.” 

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Siyeon says, as the security guard motions for them to stop loitering in the hallways. Bora waves her goodbye quickly and rushes off to practice, leaving Siyeon to gather her thoughts. _I barely see you anymore_ Bora had said, and Siyeon tries her best not to feel too bad about it. 

\---

Bora’s dad has a voice that’s loud and scratchy, weaving in between the sounds of dramas’ lamenting strings and the strict rhythm of the knife against the cutting board. Mingling with it, Siyeon can hear the sound of her mom’s laughter, the lull in their conversation before it inevitably turns to their kids. 

“Come on,” Bora says, pulling her along. “Personally, I’d rather not hear about what they have to discuss about us.” 

“All good things of course,” she deadpans. Their families haven’t really visited since some time back in November, she thinks, looking around at the comfortably cluttered hallways of Bora’s house. Bora flips the light switch on in her room on and kicks off her slippers, flopping down on her bed. Rolling her eyes, Siyeon lies down next to her, carefully sliding the other’s clothes and textbooks out of the way. 

“Yeah. _Bora, why didn’t you apply to all the Ivies. Bora, why are you majoring in the arts. Bora, come give my ego a boost so I can have something to brag about to the other parents._ Fuck, if I ever hear the phrase college apps ever again I think I’ll die.” 

“You and me both then,” Siyeon grimaces. “Although at this point I just never want to do anything related to work again.”

“Yeah, if only the teachers thought so. Just let us be free already; nobody wants to pretend to not know the formula for GDP anymore. But anyway let’s not talk about school and be boring.” She rolls over haphazardly, dragging out the last word. 

Siyeon looks around the room for a minute, takes in the bookshelves half crammed with review guides and comic books and old half-hinged binders. Bora likes to periodically reorganize the layout of her room, move things around for the extra charm of it all, but Siyeon is still surprised when she spots the old second hand upright piano in the corner. 

“When’d you move the piano into your room?” 

“Hah, yeah,” Bora says, sitting up and walking towards it. “They moved it here just to haunt me, I think. So I have to deal with it constantly taking up space and being useless for it.” She punctuates it with a light quick in the offending instrument’s direction. 

The legs of the stool scrape loudly against tile as Bora pulls it out and sits down on it. Siyeon raises an eyebrow, getting up to sit next to her. The bench is small enough that she feels justified in moving closer, until they’re side by side, thighs brushed up against each other as Bora lifts the lid gingerly. 

Bora haphazardly lifts the old floral-patterned covering. “Just seeing the keys is giving me flashbacks,” she says, but Siyeon is much more drawn to the way she places her hands on them, subconsciously curved and poised as she moves through old-familiar notes. 

There’s something odd now, hearing the muted strains of the melody to Für Elise as she leans slightly against her best friend. It’d been a stilted, tense one, back when Siyeon had been acutely aware of her piano teacher’s eyes in the stool right next to her, watching her fingers, listening to her quietly count off the rhythms of each note. Bora plays it like it’s just another pop song on the radio, with a kind of casual carelessness Siyeon would’ve been scolded for. 

It cuts off suddenly as Bora starts laughing. “That’s all I remember,” she says. 

“That’s pretty good,” Siyeon says. She presses her fingers to the keys—two octaves too high, listens to the tinny sounds of elementary school Beethoven flow into the room. Her fingers keep playing, even if Siyeon herself can’t consciously remember where exactly they’re supposed to go. “Huh,” she says as they stop over the wrong chord, a misplayed note. “I don’t really remember much either.” 

“Wow,” Bora says. “I can’t believe we blew so much time practicing a skill we’d both forget in a couple of years.” 

“It’s a fun party trick,” Siyeon offers. “You can bust it out in front of Asian uncles and they’ll be impressed enough.” 

“Right,” Bora nods, “and then they coo over you and ask you when you’re going to Harvard.” 

“Harvard doesn’t want generic cookie cutter Asians anymore. You’re better off impressing them by playing a kazoo or something.”

Bora’s snorts. “Yeah, I’d play the kazoo. Not for Harvard though. Harvard’s overrated. Hell if I’d ever be willing to cough up hundreds of thousands to rub shoulders with a bunch of legacy kids.”

(Maybe it’s less about Harvard and more about what it represents--what all of these elite education institutions represent--good careers, capable students, perhaps, more cynically, a better social status. She thinks all of them, growing up here, have always understood that--the never-ending competition between an entire generation of Korean-Americans to do better than their parents, do better than each other. When they click send on virtual college applications all they’re doing is embodying those ideas in the physical world.) 

\---

In the middle of winter break, with everybody else busy having fun and trying out the latest unhealthy sleep cycle, Siyeon and Minji and Bora had compared college lists. 

Much as they’d joked about all piling into Stanford or an Ivy college together, Siyeon prides herself on being realistic. She knows she’s not exactly Ivy material, not with thousands of other Asians just like her across the country, with the same perfect transcript and speech and debate qualifications, who have done it and done it better. 

(Sometimes Siyeon thinks about the amount of regrets that she wishes she could include in applications, four years spent accumulating embarrassments and poor behaviors and always, all the roads never taken. When you consider it in the scheme of a lifetime, four years to build a resumé and sell yourself to an impersonal admissions officer isn’t very much at all.) 

It’s not that she thinks all of them going to the same college is impossible, it’s just that Bora doesn’t belong here, in suburbia that edges on greatness but never quite reaches it. Bora was made for New York, for metropolitans, for places where the city life was large and vibrant enough to reflect her own. Bora was made for greater things than practicing the same Beethoven piece a hundred times on the piano everyday and the day to day grind of mediocrity. 

Siyeon may disappear into the dust of corporate America, make her home in sterile cubicles and crunch numbers and make six figures and maybe be alright with that one day, but Bora will _shine_. The other girl was made for things more than stable careers or comfortable mundanity. 

So when Siyeon asks Minji “have you ever thought about how we might not even be close friends four years from now?” it’s a question her subconscious has been asking since summer now. 

_miss lee_ Minji texts back. _insecurity hours are for when there’s not a multivariable test tomorrow._

_but yeah, i guess i’ve thought about it. there’s not much we can do about it i guess? yeah it’ll make me really sad, but :/_

Siyeon grimaces, feeling embarrassed and stupid. _oof i’ll leave you to bust your ass for clarke’s class then?_

_or,_ Minji writes, _you could use that big brain of yours and help the one asian in socal who isn’t a god at math._

_thought you had yoohyeon helping you with this shit_

_yoohyeon is sweet and a great tutor but we never end up getting anything done_

_oh ok i see you two breaking no dating in high school norms. very cool miss kim._

_we’re not dating._

Siyeon sighs and slides her phone back under her binder, picking up _The Stranger_ from her bag and assessing the amount of pages she still has left to read. 

Past midnight, Siyeon passes out in bed near the end of Part 1, to Meursault’s quiet, condemning words of _the bullets sank in without leaving a mark. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness._ Her head pounds, like she too, is blinded by the sun, shooting the Arab on the beach for no other reason than a mild sense of irritation. 

(Minji’s text is buried underneath physics worksheets and lit review guides. _siyeon_ it says _don’t worry about what happens after we graduate. things can’t always stay the same. and we might not be as close, but that doesn’t mean we won’t still be friends._ ) 

\---

Siyeon loves debate. That isn’t a question. Siyeon loves the crossfire of questions and the nervous thrill of scribbling rebuttals and closing speeches on loose notes sheets, hissing quick attack strategies between her and Yoohyeon before the timer runs through. Siyeon’s proud of their club too, for all the underclassmen who improve as quickly as they come, for her fellow seniors who have broken through the mold of fumbling freshmen still trying to figure out how to do basic research for cases. 

Siyeon loves debate. Siyeon will miss _this_ club, _these_ people, working with Yoohyeon on the same wonky Google doc with too many hyperlinks and as much coffee as a highschooler can possibly justify drinking. Hell, she’ll miss debate team badminton, even the old humiliating memories of getting whacked in the face by Yoohyeon with a racket or accidentally breaking half their team’s shuttlecocks. 

Except when her mom says “why don’t you want to become a lawyer? it’d put all those hours of debate you did to use,” though Siyeon had applied as a finance major for her, for the promise of a stable income, for something or another about a good career path, it doesn’t seem right. 

“I just don’t know,” Siyeon admits in the privacy of her room, even as she thinks about all those college applications already sent and paid for. A drop down bar for intended major. A brief, inspirational essay why. She thinks it’s unfair that they’re expected to know, when Siyeon herself isn’t even eighteen yet, doesn’t have a job beyond occasional tutoring gigs with tiny middle schoolers in too big uniforms. 

The essay question: _what about this major led to you picking it?_ If only plain honesty was valued more than selling themselves as an applicant. 

\---

“You run a SoCal debate club, for god’s sake,” Yoohyeon says, poking Siyeon with her straw. 

Siyeon frowns and pokes her back. “Not everyone who does debate wants to be a lawyer.” 

“Yeah, that’s because some of them are just in it to get clout. I know that’s not what you’re here for.” 

Siyeon pokes her again for good measure. “Everyone already expects me to be one. Yoohyeon, can you imagine _me_? With a real career? An actual _job_?” 

“Absolutely terrifying,” Yoohyeon says, and laughs when Siyeon shoves her. 

Absolutely terrifying. Sounds about right. 

“What if I told everyone I just wanted to sing in a knockoff garage band? Get a second hand guitar and learn how to metal scream off YouTube.”

“If that’s what you want to do,” Yoohyeon says without a trace of mockery, and Siyeon thinks it’s unfair that everybody else seems to have already figured everything out before her. 

\---

“You can always change your major,” Minji says. “It’s not an absolute.”

Siyeon blows the hair out of her eyes for the upteenth time today and decides she needs a haircut again. “You’re right.” 

Some time past eleven, right before she falls asleep, she realizes it’s not the major. Not really. It’s the sense of not being able to fit in, or of ending up like her mom in a nine to five routine she’s tired of everyday. 

\---

“Let’s go somewhere for spring break,” Bora suggests. Siyeon wrinkles her brow in concentration, staring at the economics article in front of her in a resolute attempt at paying attention. 

“Like where?”

“Anywhere. We can drive a few hours inland and go camping for a few days. Go hiking. I don’t know. I just feel like we’re seniors now. We should do something that’ll make this year memorable. Make it last.” 

Siyeon looks at Bora over her laptop screen and feels some potent cocktail of emotions threaten to spill out. Something like: _well fuck_ and _me too_. 

“Okay,” Siyeon says. “Let’s go somewhere then.” 

\---

Spring break can’t come fast enough but it does. Somehow both of them manage to convince their overbearing parents to let them take a few days trip out, with just the two of them. 

Bora insists on cramming the backseat with all sorts of odd snacks, brightly colored wrappers of questionable origin, and then it’s just the two of them after Bora clambers into the passenger’s seat. 

“My mom thinks we’re going to starve alone in the woods,” she says by way of explanation as Siyeon starts the car. 

“Forget starving,” Siyeon says. “My mom thinks she’s sending us off to die. Personally I’d give it about an eighty-twenty chance we make it out alive.” 

“Only eighty percent?” Bora says. “Don’t worry, I’ll wrestle the bear so you can get away in time.” 

“Don’t be silly,” she says. “One, we’re not camping in a place with bears, and two, I’m pretty sure _I’d_ be the one wrestling the bear. You couldn’t even handle crickets when we were kids.” 

“Neither could you,” Bora says. 

“You bullied me into dealing with them so you wouldn’t have to, so that made me more capable by default.” 

It finally occurs to Siyeon that this will be the longest they’ve spent outside, just the two of them. She thinks she should feel something more than the nervous excitement bubbling up in her. 

As they turn out of familiar highway exits and the cityscapes fade away to the rural roadsides of the interstate, Siyeon’s hands grow more nervous on the steering wheel. Bora leans absently against the car window, uncharacteristically silent. Even though she’s still within arm’s reach and it’s not like the two of them have never run out of things to say, she can’t but feel the anxiety over the coming distance washing over the car. 

Bora snaps photos of cows and grasslands and exit signs with the boredly fascinated eye of a tourist, kicks her shoes off and puts her feet on the seat. She points out small details about license plates and passing scenery, things that would probably qualify as distractions but Siyeon doesn’t care.

They switch seats at a gas station halfway through, Bora huffing outside the car and stretching her legs. “Your car smells like old dust,” she says. 

Siyeon rolls her eyes. “Very poignant, thank you.” 

They bicker half-heartedly over lunch, not really because of the existence of any real disagreement, but because they can, and Bora pulls into the parking lot of Burger King, ancient enough that the paint cracks and flakes off the walls. Small-town America is quaint and predictable (and dying, slowly, small oases for retirees, but that’s a different story). 

Siyeon insists they eat inside because she doesn’t want the smell of fried onions to linger in the insides of her car, and while that’s partially true, it’s more that she wants every part of the trip to last. 

Bora leans over her when they get their food and snaps a quick photo of their fries and drinks. 

Siyeon raises an eyebrow. “I mean, I get Asians are supposed to take pictures of everything we eat, but this isn’t exactly the kind of food those amateur food aesthetic accounts tend to propagate.” 

“It’s the experience,” Bora says, motioning for her to move so her shadow doesn’t fall in the way. “Even the shitty fries are worth documenting.”

“Oh,” Siyeon says. She sounds small. 

\---

The rest of the road blurs by in a series of momentary snapshots buoyed by the photographs Siyeon takes for Bora. Bora has a habit of hitting the brakes too suddenly in a way that makes her nervous, and once or twice they catch sight of a police car in the rearview mirror that makes Bora curse under her breath ( _I’m not speeding I’m not speeding not fucking doing anything wrong don’t flash your lights at me_ ). 

Joshua Tree National Park is sparse and dry and everything you’d expect from a desert park, and the place they drag their tent out in is thankfully a little out of the ways of the sun. Bora scowls at the sand and insists on going to look for snakes in the few scraggly bushes after they’re done. 

They don’t find any snakes--Siyeon thinks that would defeat the reassurances of safety on the campgrounds--but there are plenty of strangely shaped rocks and boulders to climb. There’s a brief moment of panic when Bora gets a cactus stuck to the bottom of her shoe, but with enough flailing and kicking around they shake it loose. 

Spring comes to deserts too, in quick splashes of yellow and purple flowers. It’s picturesque; something of a tribute to the rugged individualism of the American Southwest. When the sun sets on the silhouettes of a lone Joshua tree in the distance, it casts long shadows against the sky. 

\---

“Siyeon,” Bora yells, “I killed a snake.”

“You what?” Siyeon huffs, busy trying to focus her phone camera on the valley below them. “Was it a big one?” 

“Uh well, I have blood all over my hands now, so kind of?” 

She turns around and Bora holds out her hands somewhat sheepishly. They’re bright red and splattered with some unidentifiable shit. 

“Hang on,” she says, rummaging through her bag. “I think we packed tissues somewhere. How’d you kill the snake anyway?”

“I kind of just pulled?” Bora says, sounding sheepish again. “It was an accident.” 

“Where’s the snake corpse?” Siyeon asks, handing her some tissues. “I want to see how big it is.” 

“I lied,” Bora says, laughing as she wipes her hands off. “I scraped my ankle against a rock and it bled a little, but I just wanted to say I killed a snake.” 

“Very environmentally responsible of you,” Siyeon huffs. “For a second I thought you actually just pulled a snake apart.” 

“What, no. Snakes are too cool for that.” Bora straightens up, and Siyeon gets a look at the scrape on her ankle. It doesn’t look too terrible, a little blotchy, maybe. It’s not bleeding anymore either, which is good. “Come on,” she says, “we still have to find the palm trees on this trail.” 

The park is two parts eerie three parts serene, a series of imposingly shaped rocks and trees that loom over the two of them and filter daylight through odd bits and ends. It seems quiet, even with the people who pass them by on the trail, not at all like the way Bora bounds her way up the paths, announcing her presence by testing how noise echoes in the valley below them. 

Siyeon snaps photos of bright cactus flowers and angling Joshua trees and doesn’t stop laughing.

\---

“I want to roll down a hill,” Bora says, the night before they’re set to head back. “Roll down the hill with me.” 

“I’ll push you first.” 

“I’ll drag you down with me.” 

“You’ll still be the first to land on a cactus.” 

“There’s no cactuses here Singnie,” Bora says, with a tone of absolute certainty. “Let’s roll.” 

There are no cactuses, but that doesn’t mean the way down is smooth. It’s a lot of gravel and brush; she catches her hair on something once or twice, hits her hand on a particularly sharp rock, but by the time they’re at the bottom both of them are giggling and breathless. She’s flushed with heat and exhilaration, even with the particles of sand digging harshly into her skin. As they lay there, Siyeon listens to the sound of their laughter mingle in the night air. Suddenly the thought that this might be one of the last times they can do this grips her. 

Is it possible to miss someone before they’ve even gone away? It’s not logical, she knows that. 

“I wish we could just stay like this,” she mumbles quietly. Away from polluted city lights, the night sky is comforting. A thick blanket of indigo. 

“What do you mean?” Bora says, distracted. She hiccups a little from the laughter. 

“I don’t want to grow up,” Siyeon says. No, it’s more like--”I’m afraid of growing up.” 

Bora stops laughing, stills beside her. Her hand slips into Siyeon’s though. Siyeon wonders when that gesture had come to feel so _right_ , if it had always been like this. 

When Siyeon looks away from the night sky, Bora is looking earnestly at her. “So am I,” she says, and that shouldn’t make things seem better but it _does_. Some part of her chest aches. Can’t breathe. 

“Have I ever told you how glad I am we became friends?” she says instead. She wonders why hours of practicing speeches and bouncing arguments off Yoohyeon has left her so unprepared now. Why it’s so hard to find the right words. 

Something about Bora has always sucked the breath out of Siyeon. Even back in elementary school, when it was Siyeon ducking her head to avoid a stray kick as Bora swung her legs a little too hard traversing the monkey bars. There’s something about Bora that Siyeon just can’t seem to look away from--staring at the sun and knowing it’ll hurt, knowing it’s too far away, but doing it anyway. Just for fun. For how beautiful it looks when it’s rising over the horizon, ten minutes out from zero hour. 

It’s just--how do you put that into words?

“What’s wrong with you?” Bora asks absently. “Did you hit your head on the way down?” 

“If I did, you’re going to have to foot my hospital bills,” she says. “I hope you like medical debt.” 

Bora rolls over. Siyeon stares back at her eyes. Watching. Waiting. 

“I’m glad we’re friends too,” she says. “And growing up won’t change that.” 

Siyeon resists the urge to say something stupid and dumb like _how can you promise that_. She points up at the night sky instead, at the stars that are watching them. “That one looks like Yoohyeon’s fake bitchface,” she says. It doesn’t, not really, but Bora laughs with her anyway. 

\---

There are still so many things Siyeon wants to say, but when they head back it seems like all the time in the world wouldn’t be enough so she doesn’t. The last few days of break move to a slow crawl, and Siyeon doesn’t _mope_ , despite what anybody might think of her lying around staring at the ceiling all day. 

The college decisions trickle in, one by one. Victories, disappointments. The groupchat where she and Minji and Bora had clowned around for half a semester trying to figure out how to write personal essays is thankfully mostly silent, and Siyeon does her best to put it out of mind. 

None of them end up getting into Harvard, and that’s okay. The world moves on and they move on too, commiserate a round of rejection letters over boba the first day back from school. 

“Now that we’re in the fourth quarter,” Siyeon says, mock celebratory. “I can finally justify upgrading nap time from just one to three periods.” 

“Congratulations,” Minji nods solemnly, tipping her drink towards her. “I'm just looking forward to finally clearing out the workload.”

“I wish,” Bora says, leaning back and tipping her chair with her. “Just announce that school is over for seniors already at this point.” 

“Conventional wisdom says that kind of mindset’s going to leave you poor and alone one of these days,” Minji says. 

“Siyeon will marry me if I end up poor and alone, right?” 

“Yeah, sure,” she says. Bora whoops loudly, right in her ear. “Ah, hold on, you can’t be too poor. Otherwise my mom won’t give you her blessing, and we’ll be involved in a decades long family drama.” 

“But then you’ll just elope with me, yeah? After all, I'm way more exciting than an old family blessing.” 

“You are,” Siyeon says. “Though it depends on if you consider exciting a positive trait.” 

(It is. It’s a very positive trait.) 

“Don’t lie,” Bora says indignantly. “The Siyeon I know wouldn’t marry some _boring_ person when _I’m_ right here.”

\---

So maybe none of them were Ivy League students. So maybe Siyeon is still kind of terrified of what the quote unquote real world is supposed to mean. So maybe. 

The Friday before their last week of high school, Siyeon heads out to a crowded student parking lot. She isn’t looking forward to waiting in her car for the parking lot entrance to clear enough so she can leave, but there’s nothing to stay after for. 

“Hey!” it’s Bora’s voice, and Siyeon turns around in the middle of opening her car door to see her running towards her. “Hey, Siyeon Lee!” 

“Hey,” she calls, waving at Bora. 

“I wasn’t going to do it like this,” Bora says. Siyeon glances at her rumpled track and field uniform and wonders if she’d run all the way over from the practice field. “But uh, I guess desperate times call for desperate measures.”

And then Bora is kissing her, in broad daylight right in the middle of the student parking lot, lips against hers, and Siyeon kind of forgets everything she’s about to think or say or do. It's hot that day--Bora’s fingers are clammy and damp with perspiration when she puts them on Siyeon’s shoulders--but it takes the seventh hour bell interrupting them for Siyeon to finally pull away. 

“What the fuck?” she says. “Hold on, what kind of k-drama shit is this?” 

“I meant to do that like, last semester,” Bora says, looking kind of embarrassed, although it could just be the flush of exertion in her cheeks. “But I wasn’t sure if you really were really interested in me that way, and then well fuck. We’re about to graduate so do or die I guess.” 

“You have some god awful timing right there,” Siyeon says slowly, right before she yanks their lips together again. There’s time to think out whatever the fuck this is later. 

(The first thing Siyeon remembers from meeting Bora is the handful of sand she’d thrown in her hair. 

_You’re taking up too much space in the sandbox,_ Bora had said, sounding as peeved about it as an eight year old could be. 

_Rude,_ Siyeon had barked, right before she tossed a handful right back. 

So in retrospect, maybe, if Bora and Siyeon could’ve been best friends after that, if things could’ve worked out then, maybe they will now too.)

**Author's Note:**

> title from all time low - old scars/future hearts 
> 
> i got a lot more personally attached to this fic than i intended to. there were a lot of different aspects of what it means to necessarily grow up "asian american" i wanted to explore and i'm afraid some of them got less focus and nuance than others. i don't even like this fic that much anymore, but i haven't written much else in the middle of quarantine, so here it is. hope everyone is safe, wherever you are, and that you enjoyed reading. 
> 
> (this is also a disclaimer that despite the common joke about all asians being spawned from socal, i never went to high school there, so if there are inaccuracies don't eat me. i think that would be very unpleasant.)


End file.
